Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Pavlovaholics anonymous

We have returned from a pilgrimage to the pavlova centre of the universe. In order to cope with the terrible numbers of eaters at the various Christmas events, the older women of my husband's family purchase giant pavlovas from the supermarket then dress them up for each event.*

This one is a bit fancily dressed but you get the picture.

With the collection of such events we were bolting pavlova for a fortnight. One evening we left early to take the girls home but the person with whom we were staying brought home the leftover pav. That was the next day's morning and afternoon tea sorted.

On another day, after scoffing several slices at the event, the leftovers were at the other farm house so a morning visit happened to coincide with morning tea. Well, a rather early morning tea because if we had waited until the others came in from milking we would have been reduced to dinky slices. When it wasn't in the kitchen fridge, my husband went outside to the shed fridge because he had heard rumours of its existence and he wasn't going to let it get away.

Then, when all the festivities had officially passed, some relatives came around to dinner bringing an unused pav for dessert (and more morning and afternoon tea).

It is not even as though we were eating small slices. These monsters are made to feed 20. By the last one we were deep in the sugar zone and were bolting down canoe-sized pieces.

I blame my husband. Growing up on a dairy farm he, like most of his family, has a terrible cream addiction. They used to drink the "milk" from the top of the vat in the dairy. Un-homogenised milk from the top of a 20,000 L vat: I think you can assume they were putting cream on their cornflakes.**

These are not even real pavlovas. When you make them yourself they are usually cracked, collapsed, explosive on the outside and chewy in the middle. Bloody good, though. The supermarket ones are bizarrely perfect in shape, lightly crusted and like eating sweet air in the middle. Goodness knows what chemically-induced food technologies go into these monstrosities of the egg-white arts.

So we came home to dry out. If we had stayed any longer we would have been hard-core addicts. We would have needed residential care somewhere where even sweet potato was forbidden as it may feed the terrible sugar urges. Then there was the cream ... mmmmmm, cream!

* I note it is always the older women who bear the catering brunt of these events but that is a rant for another day.

** This was one of the attractions of my husband - good skinny genetics even under considerable duress. He also has a chronic weakness for custard and complains that nothing is like the custard he had when he was a kid. "Yes", I say, "that is probably because it was made with pure cream that was so fresh it still had moo."